Unless luck takes a turn there's no saying what may become of us." "We have been badder than this before now many a time," said the yellow-bearded man, in an accent which proclaimed him to be a German.
"My money vill come, or you vill vin, or something vill arrive to set all things right." "Let's hope so," the major said fervently.

"It's a mercy to get out of these stiff and starched clothes; but I have to be careful of them, for me tailor--bad cess to him!--will give no credit, and there's little of the riddy knocking about.

Without good clothes on me back I'd be like a sweeper without a broom." The German nodded his intense appreciation of the fact, and puffed a great blue cloud to the ceiling.

Sigismond von Baumser was a political refugee from the fatherland, who had managed to become foreign clerk in a small London firm, an occupation which just enabled him to keep body and soul together.

He and the major had lodged in different rooms in another establishment until some common leaven of Bohemianism had brought them together.